Ghana and the European Union (EU) on Tuesday signed a five-year Country Strategic Paper (CSP) and Indicative Programme under which the EU is providing a grant of about 2.5 trillion cedis (311 million Euro) to address various projects.
The document provides a comprehensive and coherent framework for EU-Ghana cooperation for 2002-2007.
It was signed by Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, Minister of Finance and Mr Stefan Frowein, Head of the European Commission's Delegation in Ghana.
It is divided into categories with the first category of 231 million Euro and the second of 80 million Euro.
Under the first category, 35 percent of the amount goes into rural development, 30 percent into road transport, 26 percent to support macro-economic and nine percent for other programmes such as capacity building.
The 80 million Euro in the second category is earmarked for unforeseen needs such as emergency assistance and support to mitigate adverse effects of instability in support earnings. Forty million Euro would be used to finance the mining sector development project.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said the CSP document is a comprehensive development framework established under the Cotonou Agreement signed in June 2000 to help address the multi-dimensional nature of poverty.
He said the key objectives of the CSP are to help achieve accelerated poverty reduction, equitable growth and ensure the integration of the Ghanaian economy into the global economy, based on conclusions of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said to date the total of EU assistance since Ghana joined the African-Caribbean-pacific (ACP) group in 1975 is about 1.1 billion Euro.
He said over the years arrangements of that nature had been on relatively narrow levels known as the National Indicative Programme (NIP) with lower levels of resources.
He said the current CSP and indicative programme, however, provide a higher allocation of funds in real terms than the NIP.
Mr Osafo-Maafo said in addition to the amount, funds from the European Investment Bank, would also be available on a long-term basis and accessible to the private sector. He said it would operate as a revolving fund aimed at financial self-sustainability.
He said other areas such as small and medium enterprises, infrastructure and direct funding to large projects in key sectors of the economy such as agro-industry, mining and tourism, would benefit.
Mr Frowein said the document was developed in Ghana as a joint programme and the work would be monitored and evaluated.
